Paterson: Reid comments ‘reprehensible’

David Paterson said remarks about Barack Obama attributed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in a newly published book are “reprehensible,” but Reid should not have to resign his leadership position in that chamber.

I have said this not only when it was a Democrat or when it was a Republican, that when people properly apologize for these types of mistakes that it doesn’t merit destroying their careers. But I would say that I thought the comments not only were reprehensible, but it’s amazing to think to print a whole book, that so many people saw, and nobody noticed that this ill-chosen remark was in the book? Didn’t anybody read the book before they put it out? I find it kind of shocking.

“I’m just saying that it’s disturbing a lot of people must of have seen this,” Paterson continued during a Q&A after a speech to Family Planning Advocates. “It’s a very intrusive and kind of degrading remark, but it’s one that was probably close to a different kind of way of phrasing it which might have been acceptable.”

Some Republicans, including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, have called for Reid to resign over the comment. Steele, like Paterson, is African-American.